Samira
Illuminated Xalimo
From Teresa's Personal Correspondances
The Onset
Lord, my God, who am I that You should forsake me? The Child of your Love--and now become as the most hated one--the one--You have thrown away as unwanted--unloved. I call, I cling, I want--and there is no One to answer--no One on Whom I can cling--no, No One.--Alone ... Where is my Faith--even deep down right in there is nothing, but emptiness & darkness--My God--how painful is this unknown pain--I have no Faith--I dare not utter the words & thoughts that crowd in my heart--& make me suffer untold agony.
Jesus has a very special love for you. [But] as for me--The silence and the emptiness is so great--that I look and do not see,--Listen and do not hear.
--MOTHER TERESA TO THE REV. MICHAEL VAN DER PEET, SEPTEMBER 1979
So many unanswered questions live within me afraid to uncover them--because of the blasphemy--If there be God --please forgive me--When I try to raise my thoughts to Heaven--there is such convicting emptiness that those very thoughts return like sharp knives & hurt my very soul.--I am told God loves me--and yet the reality of darkness & coldness & emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul. Did I make a mistake in surrendering blindly to the Call of the Sacred Heart?
--ADDRESSED TO JESUS, AT THE SUGGESTION OF A CONFESSOR, UNDATED
("What do I labour for? If there be no God--there can be no soul--if there is no Soul then Jesus--You also are not true
"I utter words of Community prayers--and try my utmost to get out of every word the sweetness it has to give--But my prayer of union is not there any longer--I no longer pray."
--1959
Tell me, Father, why is there so much pain and darkness in my soul?
--TO THE REV. LAWRENCE PICACHY, AUGUST 1959
Five years after her Nobel, a Jesuit priest in the Calcutta province noted that "Mother came ... to speak about the excruciating night in her soul. It was not a passing phase but had gone on for years." A 1995 letter discussed her "spiritual dryness." She died in 1997
The Onset
Lord, my God, who am I that You should forsake me? The Child of your Love--and now become as the most hated one--the one--You have thrown away as unwanted--unloved. I call, I cling, I want--and there is no One to answer--no One on Whom I can cling--no, No One.--Alone ... Where is my Faith--even deep down right in there is nothing, but emptiness & darkness--My God--how painful is this unknown pain--I have no Faith--I dare not utter the words & thoughts that crowd in my heart--& make me suffer untold agony.
Jesus has a very special love for you. [But] as for me--The silence and the emptiness is so great--that I look and do not see,--Listen and do not hear.
--MOTHER TERESA TO THE REV. MICHAEL VAN DER PEET, SEPTEMBER 1979
So many unanswered questions live within me afraid to uncover them--because of the blasphemy--If there be God --please forgive me--When I try to raise my thoughts to Heaven--there is such convicting emptiness that those very thoughts return like sharp knives & hurt my very soul.--I am told God loves me--and yet the reality of darkness & coldness & emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul. Did I make a mistake in surrendering blindly to the Call of the Sacred Heart?
--ADDRESSED TO JESUS, AT THE SUGGESTION OF A CONFESSOR, UNDATED
("What do I labour for? If there be no God--there can be no soul--if there is no Soul then Jesus--You also are not true
"I utter words of Community prayers--and try my utmost to get out of every word the sweetness it has to give--But my prayer of union is not there any longer--I no longer pray."
--1959
Tell me, Father, why is there so much pain and darkness in my soul?
--TO THE REV. LAWRENCE PICACHY, AUGUST 1959
Five years after her Nobel, a Jesuit priest in the Calcutta province noted that "Mother came ... to speak about the excruciating night in her soul. It was not a passing phase but had gone on for years." A 1995 letter discussed her "spiritual dryness." She died in 1997
